План прохождения дисциплины «Иностранный язык (английский)» и задания для студентов исторического факультета специальности 1-02 01 01 «История и обществоведческие дисциплины» заочной формы обучения 1 семестр: 8 аудиторных часов №№ Название темы 1 2 3 A New Stage in my Life. I am a Student Now. Brest State University. My Studies at the University. Social and Political Portrait of the Republic of Belarus. Brest. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Places of interest in Great Britain. 4 Количество аудиторных часов 2 2 2 2 I. Подготовить устные высказывания по темам: 1. Our University. My studies at the University. 2. The Republic of Belarus (general information: geographical position, population, political system, places of interest, outstanding representatives, etc.). 3. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (general information: geographical position, population, political system, places of interest, outstanding representatives, etc.). II. Прочитать и перевести тексты “From the history of Belarus” и “From the history of Britain”, составив словарь незнакомых слов. Ответить на вопросы после текстов. III. Составить аннотацию текста “Sequoyah”. Topic 1: OUR UNIVERSITY Brest State University was founded in 1945. It was called the Teachers’ Training Institute then. In 1995 it became a university. Its full name is Brest State A.S. Pushkin University. The University occupies several academic buildings: an old building, the sports complex with gymnasiums, a swimming pool, several lecture halls and tutorial rooms, and a seven-storey building with a canteen, a library, reading halls, laboratories, lecture halls and subject rooms. At the disposal of students there are four hostels, a winter garden, a garden of successive blossoming, an agricultural and biological station. The University has museums of biology, of geology, and of the history of physical culture and sport. The University educates about 3,500 students at the day-time department and about 3,000 students acquire higher education at the correspondence department. There are 11 faculties at the University: Philology, Foreign Languages, Psychology and Pedagogics, Social Pedagogics, Geography, Biology, Physics and Mathematics, Physical Education and Sport, History, Law, and Pre-University Education. Students are educated in 45 specialities. Teaching is maintained at a high level. About 400 professors, associate professors and tutors teach students at the University. The course of study lasts four-five years. Each year consists of two terms (autumn and spring) with examination periods at the end of each term. The term is divided between theoretical and practical work: students have a few weeks of lectures followed by seminars. When students have seminars, they spend a lot of time in the reading room revising the material. Fortunately, the Internet helps now a lot. The main form of work for external students is independent work at home. Students do not only study, they are also engaged in various forms of research work. They write course papers and diploma theses, participate in scientific conferences and publish their articles. This work helps them to better understand the subjects they study and the current requirements of the national economy, to see the results of their work put into practice. Topic 2: THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS Belarus is situated in Central Europe. The Republic borders on Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Its territory is 207,600 square kilometres and the population is about 10 million people. Most of the people live in cities, the largest of which are Minsk (the capital), Gomel, Brest, Vitebsk, Grodno and Mogilev. Belarus is a bilingual republic: the official languages are Belarusian and Russian. The total population of the country is literate. The main religion is Eastern Orthodox (80 %), others include Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim. Belarus is a broad plain. One third of the territory is covered with woods and forests. The largest of them are called pushchas, the most famous are the Belovezhskaya and the Nalibockskaya. Other national reserves are Braslavsky and Narochansky National parks, Berezinsky Reserve, etc. They have rich flora and fauna some of which have survived only in Belarus. There are about 20,000 rivers and brooks in the republic. They flow into the Baltic Sea or into the Black Sea. Seven rivers are more than 500 kilometres long each. They are the Dnieper,